...and so it concludes.

For my internship portfolio I had to write a paper on how living in Ireland for this summer has impacted me as a person. I began the paper by explaining how difficult that is to do. I think when someone is still in the midst of a life-changing experience it is difficult to see the full meaning of what that experience will one day mean to them. Ask me a year from now, five years from now and I may have the answer they’re looking for. But ask me today and you will only get the jumbled mess of emotions I’m feeling after just having left Dublin and just having said goodbye to the country that had become my home these past eight weeks.

I can still remember when the plane landed on the tarmac at Dublin Airport back in May. I stepped off the plane knowing that the experiences I was going to have this summer would leave me changed forever. I suppose I realized that the person stepping off the plane at Dublin Airport in May would not be the same person stepping back on it in July. Part of that feeling left me a little scared I’ll admit. It’s always scary to change because you’re not always sure who you’re changing into. A better person, a worse person, a stronger person, a weaker person? I’m still not sure I can say exactly what type of person I’ve been changed into but I hope it is for the better.

I made friends more easily than I ever expected going to Ireland. By the time I’d landed in Dublin I’d already met two of the people I would hang out with the rest of the summer. When someone lands in a new country by themselves it only makes sense that they are going to gravitate towards those people who are in the same position as them and hold on for dear life. So that’s what I did. And by the end of the summer I had a group of girls that I spent the last eight weeks of my life with. I know I will always look back on them fondly because it was these friendships I created that made this experience not only easier, but also so much more enjoyable.

I think it would be hard to have an experience like I’ve had this summer and not remember the people who were around me as I was experiencing it. All the people I’ve met on this trip, whether they’re the group of girls I regularly hung out with or the random stranger in the pub, will have a lasting impact on my life because they were there when this summer changed me. They have a unique view of me that no one else will have because they saw these changes occur as they happened. I left my family one person but came back another. The people in Ireland, however, have been able to see this small transformation as it was happening. Though, I’m still not completely sure who I’ve been transformed into.

It’s not just Ireland that’s changed me though; it’s the travelling outside of Ireland too. Travelling is such an eye opening and life-affirming experience that I feel it is impossible to do so without it having a great impact on your life. Especially when it’s in a foreign country so far from home.

Of course the trip that had the most impact on me was Dachau. I feel that visit changed me more this summer than any amount of pub hopping or site seeing in Dublin will. It amazes me to think I spent eight weeks in Ireland yet I think the eight hours I spent in that camp will change me far more. Of course, spending the time in Dachau wouldn’t have been possible if I hadn’t come to Ireland to study abroad. Maybe that’s what Ireland really was for me- an entranceway to newer and greater possibilities.

Of course my internship also had a great impact on me! I feel like everyday I had an experience there that changed me. Sometimes it was the silliest of things too, such as getting to hold a book from 1846. Something so random for any other person and yet so meaningful for me.

Also, I always felt like I was leaving my mark on history when I was working in the museum. I was opening up exhibit cabinets that hadn’t been opened in a hundred years and then locking them back up where they probably wouldn’t be opened again for another fifty years. It’s odd, and somehow powerful for me, to walk past one of those display cases and know I was the person who handled the specimen and affixed its registration number to it. I can go back in five years, ten years, twenty years and stand at that same specimen remembering back to when I picked it up and held it in my hands. The little experiences like that are actually what I feel impacted me the most and will stay with me the longest.

Actually maybe its not that those little experiences impacted me the most I think instead it’s that those experiences are the easiest for me to see the impact of right away. Maybe because they are so simple and small. It’s the bigger experiences that will take me a little bit longer to process. Even just thinking about all the great people I got to work with this summer and all the different tasks I got to do. I think a few years from now I’m going to look back on this internship and say, “Wow! I actually did that?!” In fact, I think that sums up this entire summer- wow, I actually did do that!

There are still times when I can’t believe I actually spent my summer living in Dublin, even while I was still there. Even now, eight weeks after getting to Dublin and a day after heading home, I can’t believe that I actually lived in another country for a summer. It’s something that I think will take a while before I can ever fully process it.

And then it was time to head home- that was a whole other experience in itself. It’s all so bittersweet too because while I was so excited to be heading home and seeing my friends and family, I was also sad at having to say goodbye to Dublin, which has become my home these past eight weeks.

This feeling of sadness is probably the best indicator of how much Ireland has changed me and I think it shows how I’ve been changed for the better. If I had a poor time while here or thought it had negativley changed who I am then I’m sure I would have felt more relief at leaving. Instead I wanted to continue the amazing expereinces I had in Dublin and that means that I was sad to have to say goodbye.

So what did I get from my time in Ireland? Memories mostly, memories of a summer when I was twenty that impacted the rest of my life. Experiences too, I have lots of those. Experiences of a new culture so different from my own that became my culture for a short period of time. The biggest thing I got from my time in Dublin though is the new person I have become from these memories and experiences. A person that I may not fully understand for another five, ten, or twenty years.

I’m still not sure if I wrote the type of paper that my professor wanted for my personal project on how Ireland impacted me. I could have talked about the differences in the Irish and American workplace or the differences in our culture- but most of that I talked about in the weekly entry journals I also had to submit. I could have made up stuff about how this experience has changed me instead of fully admitting that I’m still not sure yet of its impact. I could have done all that and maybe it would have been what he wanted. But that’s not me, this is. And this is me admitting I still don’t fully know what this summer has meant to me… but I sure can’t wait to find out in the years to come.

Thanks all for sharing this summer with me and taking the time to read my blogs and look at my photos. It really was one hell of a ride…

written by  kmr788 on July 26, 2009 from Chicago, United States
from the travel blog: Dublin, Ireland
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